Saturday, February 09, 2013

Here's a frightening thought, squared

In a press conference Thursday morning, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck confirmed that police shot innocent bystanders during the hunt for Dorner. He detailed the two victims' gunshot wounds:
"One has a minor gunshot wound and is in the process of being released. The second person is in stable condition, with two gunshot wounds," said Chief Beck. "Tragically, we believe this was a case of mistaken identity by the officers."
Sources tell the Los Angeles Times that the people shot by police were two women delivering newspapers. One was shot in the hand and the other in the back.

Of course, the two individuals killed shot and wounded were not the very large African-American gentleman searched for in a dark 2005 Nissan pickup, but two older latino women in a different make and color of pickup that the police shot up, immediately, to the point it looked like Bonnie & Clyde's Death Car.
Good job.

Emma Hernandez, 71, was delivering the Los Angeles Times with her daughter, 47-year-old Margie Carranza, when officers apparently mistook their pickup for that of Dorner.

Hernandez was shot in the back, and remains hospitalized in stable condition.

Carranza suffered a wound from glass that struck her hand and received stitches.

Their pickup truck slowed down and stopped in front of the house of one of Dorner's potential targets. Wrong make and model, wrong color, two occupants of the vehicle instead of one, who were the wrong sex, size, and age.

And fifteen minutes later another pickup truck was plugged down the street by the police. Apparently no injuries there.

Looks like California law enforcement is due for a collective change of underwear and a shovelful of Valium on this one.

One photo showed an officer placing tags indicating shots fired. The truck was partially obscured, but I could make out a tag near the left rear tire that read, "46."

So, there were at least 46 shots fired.

That old Robin Williams joke about LA police yanking you out of the car and putting you on the ground at gunpoint for having your left speaker out doesn't seem quite so absurd now, given the evidence here.

It was "a tragic misinterpretation" by officers working under "incredible tension," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Friday in an interview with The Times.

Because when you're driving over to murder someone, it's typical behavior to deliver a few newspapers on the way. Not to mention changing your body size, gender, race and cloning yourself into two people. So it's an understandable misinterpretation.

I occasionally work under incredible tension, yet the local cops are totally uncool if I shoot up a random pickup truck to relieve stress.